Oscars 2025: we predict this year’s winners

THE 97th Academy Awards will once again be shown live on free-to-air television this year, but sadly, following the Academy’s cruel snubs for the Oscar shortlisted Kneecap, Room Taken and Clodagh in its final nominations, there’s only one Irish iron left in the Oscars fire this year.

Thankfully, it’s an important and timely contender: the excellent ‘Donald Trump: the early years’ biopic The Apprentice was co-produced and financed by several international companies and organisations, including Dublin-based Tailored Films and Screen Ireland.

The Ali Abbasi-directed drama, which details the future US president’s grimy rise to fame as a New York property mogul through the late 1970s and early 1980s, has snared two nominations: Sebastian Stan for Actor in a Leading Role and Jeremy Strong for Actor in a Supporting Role - and at least one of them has a great chance of actually taking home an Oscar.

Read on to find out why...

Oscars 2025: we predict this year’s winners

Cult Movies: Classic BBC eco-drama Doomwatch still well worth a look today

There’s only one Irish iron left in the Oscars fire this year. Thankfully, it’s an important and timely contender, the excellent ‘Donald Trump: the early years’ biopic The Apprentice

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ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

Nominees: Adrien Brody (The Brutalist), Timothée Chalamet (A Complete Unknown), Colman Domingo (Sing Sing), Ralph Fiennes (Conclave), Sebastian Stan (The Apprentice)

Predicted winner: Timothée Chalamet

THIS is a tight category stacked with worthy contenders, but the two favourites are probably Timothée Chalamet for his entertainingly committed portrayal of the young Bob Dylan as he rises to fame in the early-to-mid 1960s and Adrien Brody’s powerful turn as a talented, troubled Hungarian architect attempting to make a new life in an increasingly racist post-WW2 America.

Brody is already renowned as a fine actor who can turn his hand to practically any role, and he delivers another top-tier performance as the tormented Lazlo Toth in the 10-times nominated The Brutalist.

However, he already won an Oscar for playing a similar character (that one based on a real person, Holocaust survivor Wladyslaw Szpilman) in 2003’s The Pianist.

Previously nominated in this category back in 2018 for his role in Call Me By Your Name when he was just 22, Hollywood’s current golden boy Chalamet would still make history at 29 by becoming the youngest performer ever to scoop the Actor in a Leading Role award - a record currently held by Brody, who was slightly further into his 29th year when he won for The Pianist.

Arguably, that means it would be a doubly tough break for Brody to lose to Chalamet - but hey, that’s showbiz.

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

Nominees: Cynthia Erivo (Wicked), Karla Sofía Gascón (Emilia Pérez), Mikey Madison (Anora), Demi Moore (The Substance), Fernanda Torres (I’m Still Here)

Predicted winner: Demi Moore

I’M Still Here still hasn’t been released on this side of the Atlantic, so we can really only evaluate the three other nominees fairly.

Having already claimed a Golden Globe, Demi Moore is the favourite to win for her gamely meta turn as a fading star who makes a Faustian pact for a taste of bygone youth in satirical body horror The Substance (her young co-star Margaret Qualley, whose performance is arguably even better, was mystifyingly passed over by the Academy).

However, Moore has fierce competition from trans actress Karla Sofía Gascón’s landmark titular performance in 13-times nominated musical crime drama Emilia Pérez, and the Wicked Witch of the West herself, Cynthia Erivo, one of Wicked’s 10 nominations.

Mikey Madison shot to fame with her breakout performance in Anora, but it would be such a bad look for the Academy to reward this 26-year-old newcomer over 62-year-old screen veteran Moore given that The Substance is literally about how Hollywood drops older actresses in favour of hot new starlets.

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Nominations: Monica Barbaro (A Complete Unknown), Ariana Grande (Wicked), Felicity Jones (The Brutalist), Isabella Rossellini (Conclave), Zoe Saldaña (Emilia Pérez)

Predicted winner: Ariana Grande

WHILE Isabella Rossellini certainly makes an impact in the unexpectedly gripping drama Conclave, her nomination for a small role which gets approximately five minutes of screen time feels very much like a “we love you, here’s an Oscar nod” gesture from the Academy.

On the other hand, Monica Barbaro more than holds her own against Timothée Chalomet’s Oscar-nominated leading turn in A Complete Unknown, as does Felicity Jones opposite Adrien Brody’s nominated performance in The Brutalist.

However, for my money, this category is a two-horse race between the supporting actresses in the two most talked about musicals of 2024.

While Wizard of Oz prequel Wicked might have the catchier songs and given Ariana Grande the chance to show audiences she can act almost as well as she can carry a tune, trans-themed musical extravaganza Emilia Pérez found Zoe Saldaña convincing us of the reverse.

It’s a tough call, but with 13 nominations total, something has to give when it comes to Emilia Pérez - and unfortunately, that might be Saldaña’s Oscar hopes.

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Nominees: Yura Borisov (Anora), Kieran Culkin (A Real Pain), Edward Norton (A Complete Unknown), Guy Pearce (The Brutalist), Jeremy Strong (The Apprentice)

Predicted winner: Jeremy Strong

PLAYING nasty seems to have paid off for this year’s AIASR hopefuls, with most of the nominees playing characters you’d hope never to meet in real life.

The fact that Succession star Jeremy Strong made such an impact with his terrifying portrayal of a notorious real life villain, Roy Cohn - who made his name as Joe McCarthy’s right-hand man and modelled the young Donald Trump in his own image - in The Apprentice makes him a front-runner for this Oscar.

However, his Succession co-star Kieran Culkin also produced the performance of his career as the no-filter foil to Jesse Eisenberg’s painfully uptight character in the Oscar-nominated A Real Pain.

A win for either Roy boy on the night would sit OK with me, but I have a feeling this could be Kendall’s moment.

We can only hope he decides to rap during his acceptance speech.

DIRECTING

Nominees: Jacques Audiard (Emilia Pérez), Sean Baker (Anora), Brady Corbet (The Brutalist), Coralie Fargeat (The Substance), James Mangold (A Complete Unknown)

Predicted winner: Brady Corbet

IT’S great to see a horror nominated in this most prestigious of categories, not to mention a female director, and Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance is definitely one of 2024’s most memorable films from any genre.

Brady Corbet leaned hard on the ‘brutal’ in relentlessly depressing drama The Brutalist, but it was undeniably one of the most visually arresting pictures of the past year and unexpectedly gave Sean Baker’s Anora a run for its money in the sexually explicit scenes stakes.

Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown was an effective biopic centred on an American musical icon, but James Mangold’s picture is likely to lose out to either to Corbet’s much more serious and self-important piece spotlighting the struggles of Jewish refugees in the US following the Second World War or the uber-stylish, Mexico-set, trans-themed musical Emilia Pérez at a moment where the Trump administration is ushering in a new age of gender and race-based intolerance.

I think Emilia Pérez will win elsewhere from its record haul of 13 nominations, so for that reason it’s Corbet all the way - not bad going for what’s only this actor-turned-director’s third feature behind the camera.

INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM

Nominees: I’m Still Here (Brazil), The Girl with the Needle (Denmark), Emilia Pérez (France), The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Germany), Flow (Latvia)

Predicted winner: Emilia Pérez

FOR the reasons just discussed, the hugely ambitious page-to-screen adaptation Emilia Pérez is a shoe-in for this category - although I can’t be the only one surprised to learn this Spanish/English language musical is actually a French production.

As well as being very much of the Zeitgeist thematically, it’s also a much more enjoyable watch than you’ve probably heard.

ANIMATED FEATURE

Nominations: Flow, Inside Out 2, Memoir of a Snail, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, The Wild Robot

Predicted winner: Inside Out 2

FAIR play to Wallace & Gromit for making it back to the Oscars conversation for the first time in 16 years.

However, the animated features with the most buzz this time around are definitely Inside Out 2, Flow and The Wild Robot.

Flow doesn’t open here until March, but this critically acclaimed cat-centric tale won the Golden Globe and thus has good ‘momentum’.

Inside Out 2 surprised many by being just as good if not better than its Oscar-winning forerunner, while The Wild Robot has the makings of a brand new animated franchise.

I suspect Disney/Pixar’s sequel has the edge for the Oscar - but, as a cat lover, I’ll definitely be rooting for Flow.

BEST PICTURE

Nominees: Anora, The Brutalist, A Complete Unknown, Conclave, Dune: Part Two, Emilia Pérez, I’m Still Here, Nickel Boys, The Substance, Wicked

Predicted winner: The Brutalist

THIS is the big one, and they don’t come much bigger - or, at over three-and-a-half hours, longer - than The Brutalist.

Brady Corbet’s bum-numbing exploration of post-war America’s paradoxical, often abusive and exploitative relationship with those it supposedly ‘welcomed’ to its shores from Europe is visually stunning.

Even if it doesn’t quite stick its landing - maybe there’s a four-hour cut which resolves some of the final act’s problematic storytelling? - this punishing tale of WASPish intolerance is certainly the Best Picture a deeply troubled America deserves right now.

How to watch: the 97th Academy Awards will be shown live on ITV1 from midnight on March 3